


Look Past Extraneous Detail And Percieve Clearly

by badluckvixen13 (alteringviews)



Series: 1 Million for Black Hermione [26]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Hermione Granger, Flying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 03:37:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10562907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteringviews/pseuds/badluckvixen13
Summary: She had a feeling that “muggle born Registry” and  “Breeding Laws” would show up in the papers next, maybe before full on wizarding revolution and warfare. She smiled.So much for the future.





	

Music player--check. 

Headphones-- check.

The feeling of runny eggs over her body-- check.

She was ready. 

She zipped up her jumper and grabbed her broom, a modest contraptions she’d made herself after a near month of realizing that reading wouldn’t get rid of the shaking of her hands. She’d taken the time to read all she could about broom making, locked the door to her flat and worked quietly. 

She’d never had the urge to make anything before that she could remember, at least not for herself. Art was something that had always slipped through her fingers, the patience, passion, and blood it took to create things had always been beyond her. She supposed because she’d rather shy away from carving open her chest unless it was on the ice anyway…

But she’d done it and once she was done she could see the appeal that creating things had on people. There was a sense of accomplishment and ownership, as if she’d written a stellar book on a complicated theory but kept it just for herself. Private, personal… and a great deal more responsive than the brooms that she’d had to ride in her years since matriculating into Hogwartts. 

It was not a Nimbus or a Firebolt… but it was hers and it suited her just fine for the kind of travel she liked. She walked to the roof of her flat and pulled her cloak around her, resting back onto the stick, took a deep breath and directed her broom into the sky. 

She’d passed her first year’s flying lesson, but she had not taken any joy in it, whether because she came from a culture where flying was for birds or airplanes she wasn’t sure, but it hadn’t been until her fourth year that she’d taken any interest in it. 

It was decidedly different than running as fast as her legs could carry her. She’d begun to associate running with danger now and flight had only happy memories attached to it. 

It had Viktor attached to it.

She smiled lightly listening to the playlist she made specifically for flying a mix of classical music and slow music from both the wizarding and muggle world. It had been Viktor to take her up on a broom one night and show her exactly why he loved flying. He’d been patient, understanding, careful to wrap his hands around her waist caging her between him and the broom. She still remembered the way he smelled. A warm bourbon scent which she’d learned wasn’t cologne, but him. His voice a low rumble in her ear as he hushed her fears, the warm broadness of him behind her as he guided the broom, getting her used to it before showing her truly what flight could be like. 

She stopped the broom, overlooking London and swung her leg over it, straddling it and breathed, pulling her hood up and closed her eyes. Viktor always told her that he thought better on brooms, an explanation for his habit of writing his essays while straddling a broom only a few feet off the ground. 

She learned that it was the opposite for her. The Earth grounded her, kept her focused on the details that needed to be parsed so they would survive. The Earth made her the Brightest Witch of Her Age, yet in the air… Shooting through the clouds and free-falling, taking the pure heady pleasure of flight, selfishly and without regard to anyone else.  She felt  _ free  _ and that freedom came with the ability to sort through her emotions-- no… dance through them, fly and waltz with them for a change. The memories that she hadn’t allowed to surface and sting the way they should have. 

The briskness of the wind over the coast, nothing but water for miles as she flew beyond the London coast towards the Netherlands. 

What had it all been for? 

The years of scolding Harry and Ron, of keeping them from getting killed… Of nearly getting herself killed in the process? Of always focusing on the logic, the facts rather than the reality of her existence. 

She’d been the smart one. 

The one to turn to.

The one with answers for every question but her own. 

She’d sobbed every night, muffled pitiful things at the jeering and taunts swirling in her ears, making her smother them further, read more and curl up tighter in the four poster bed in her room. The drapes closed around her bed, a silencing charm over them so no one would hear her. She’d cried every night it seemed, clutching a tome to her chest and wishing…

Wishing for an answer…

She hadn’t been able to look past the extraneous details and perceive clearly the root of her melancholy. She supposed because emotions were nowhere near as tidy as facts… no matter how she’d tried to make them so. 

Griffyndor…

Ravenclaw…

Her parents….

Ron in the chamber of secrets…

She snorted. What had she been thinking? Had it been the thrill of accomplishing something after wondering if they would ever manage to do so? What had she been thinking? Had she been thinking at all or perhaps she’d just gone along with it because it seemed… inevitable?

Her broom stopped over the ocean abruptly, toppling her forward so she held on by one hand, dangling over the ocean and looking down. 

Inevitable…

Just one of the most likely possibilities that she’d counted on. A plan…

Had it ever been a plan that she’d been happy with?

Had Lily wondered the same thing about James? She swallowed looking down at the water below before grasping her broom with her other hand and pulling herself back onto it. 

When she’d sobbed all those nights, what had she been crying for? Because reading didn’t seem to distract the way it used to as a child on her grandmother’s lap? 

She turned the broom back towards London, careful to fly to the house crammed between two that no one ever noticed. 

12 Grimmauld Place had seen better days she was sure. When she opened the door, she didn’t really know why she’d come there instead of going home. She heard someone moving around in the kitchen.

_ Harry _ , she knew as she carried her broom up the stairs, down the hall past the peeling wallpaper and sneering portraits. Beyond the dark rooms until she arrived in the kitchen  where Harry was sitting, drinking slowly. The table covered with items, more than likely Sirius’s things. 

He didn’t look up when she walked in and took a seat. 

“Didn’t know you owned a broom, ‘Mione.”

“I made it,” she said, taking a seat. “Apparently, books won’t do it alone.”

Harry nodded and drank from his mug again, “Tea?”

“No, thank you.” Hermione said. “Where’s Ginny?”

“At the Burrow,” he said. “I… needed some time.”

“Work?”

“Memories…”

Hermione nodded, letting out a breath. 

“Why did you and Ron break up?”

“Ron’s told you.”

He nodded, “He said you two argued, that you wouldn't tell him the truth… but that was all. It didn't sound right. You don’t lie, ‘Miome. You two were--”

“Inevitable?” Hermione offered and he looked up at that, their eyes meeting before he looked away from her, looking around the old kitchen. “You'd be surprised how much I've lied, Harry.”

“I want to renovate it,” Harry said. “Top to bottom… make it liveable… fill it with people again. I think Sirius would want that.”

“Would you believe me… if I said it was because of you?”

Harry looked at her. Not sure what to do with this Hermione. It wasn’t as though she was one to break silences, or talk in circles, but she’d never been like this before. 

“Me?” Harry asked. 

“You… were the one thing that kept us together,” Hermione said. “How much you need stability.. predictability...Maybe that was the reason I went along with it when I knew that we would never... _ be. _ ”

Harry looked at her strangely, “You and Ron?”

Hermione nodded. 

“We could have been good together, Hermione,” he said a little wryly. “Did you ever think of it?”

“Ron certainly did,” Hermione answered, “Maybe once, but no. No, Harry...we really couldn’t have been.”

Harry swallowed, “You think so?”

“I know,” Hermione said. 

“Is it because of Viktor?”

Hermione laughed slightly, “No. it’s because we have so much between us and so little in common.”

Harry nodded, “Quidditch.”

She laughed, “Among other things.”

Harry looked back to his cup before glancing to her broom, “Is that because of him?”

Hermione looked to her broom in thought for a moment. She hadn’t made a broom because of Viktor… but she had made a discovery because of him. 

“Not in the way that you’re thinking,” she said. “He taught me the joy of flight… I learned how freeing it was.”

“Freeing?”

“I’m not Hermione on the broom,” she said. “No politics, no books… I’m just.”

“Just what?”

She shook her head, “Just.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to make of that but watched her stand up. 

“Would you ever consider it? Ron, I mean?”

She tilted her head, “Maybe if I never gave myself any forgiveness… and got hit in the head really, really hard.”

Harry smirked, “You… are truly a marvel.”

Hermione nodded and rounded the table to hug him and press a kiss to his head, “You have been through enough without a plan Harry… It’s okay to follow your own.”

“And what about you?” Harry asked softly. “What about Hermione Granger?”

Hermione laughed, “I think… it’s about time that I don’t have one.”

Harry winced, “That could be bad.”

“Couldn’t it be? Next thing we know Ron will be reading books for fun.”

Harry shook his head, “Merlin, help us if that happens. It’s definitely the end of the world… What are you going to do now that you’re not working at the library any longer?”

Hermione shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“That’s truly frightening.”

Hermione hummed, “I’m… finding it rather exhilarating actually. A kind of danger that’s good every once and awhile.”

Harry shook his head and stood, “Could I ask a favor?”

Hermione gave him a wry look, “At this point, Harry, I don’t even know why you had to.”

“Apparate me back to the Burrow? Afraid I probably drank just enough to make it not a good idea on my own.”

Hermione nodded, watching him stand and wobble on his feet so he had to support himself with the table to take her hand as she lifted her broom and imagined the Burrow. They arrived just outside of it and Hermione helped Harry to the door, knocking politely. 

“Hermione?” Ron asked looking at her confused as to her presence, his eyes narrowing at Harry leaning on her, and then widening again at the broom in her hand. It wasn’t any kind of broom you could buy anywhere, he was sure of it. Where had she gotten it?

“What…”

“Harry’s had a bit too much to drink,” Hermione said. “Do you mind?”

Ron stepped aside and let her help Harry inside and onto the couch. Ginny appeared, kneeling beside Harry who was already sleeping. 

“Grimmauld?” Ginny asked softly, stroking his hair. 

“Yeah,” Hermione said with a smile. “He’ll okay though.”

Ginny looked at her, “You think so?”

Hermione grinned, patting her shoulder, “With you? I know so.”

Ginny smiled and looked at her, “Are you… going to stick around?”

Hermione nodded, “For now. I’ll… see you later, ‘kay?”

Ginny nodded and Hermione turned, bidding them goodbye before hopping on her broom and taking off into the sky. Ron looked after her, watching her fly away and Ginny took the time to sock him hard in the arm. 

“Ow!”

“That… was the time when you were supposed to talk to her, Ron,” Ginny said with a shake of her head. “Prat.”

*

Hermione looked at the Daily Prophet and wondered if she’d been the only person who had any grasp on sanity after the war. If this was the Ministry’s idea of trying to regain their credibility, they had a very strange idea about it. No matter, she didn’t plan on being in the wizarding world enough for it to matter. 

_ Marriage Law… _ she thought, closing the paper. What a bunch of nonsense, almost as much nonsense as certain magical creatures being inherently dark. A bunch of bloody nonsense that reminded her to write to Viktor about how Cyrus was doing now that his name was completely cleared. 

As she read the article on the Marriage Law that was being proposed and discussed in the next Wizengamot, she had a feeling that there was very large secret behind it. It spoke of the good of the future of the wizarding world, investigation and discovery but nothing of happiness and freedom. It seemed to her that he Ministry was simply taking a different approach to Voldemort’s ultimate goal. 

She set it aside to read the Quibbler’s take on it and smiled at Luna’s name on the article. She was still a rather out of the ordinary woman, but extraordinary none the less and she couldn’t help but cheer at he rather biting commentary on the Marriage Law as it had been presented by the Ministry. She hoped the British Ministry wouldn’t be foolish enough to try and pass this law, and if they were that they weren’t foolish enough to think that it would fly by so easily. 

Now, curious, she went to the library to dig up this near ancient report that had been mentioned. The truth seemed to be that generations upon generations of inbreeding had left pureblood families all but infertile. Squibs created an atavism in a non-magical line and were the product of something like genetic decline, a generational step just before infertility.  Having children with a half-blood might have helped stave off the concentration of pureblood and saved them for a time, but judging from the explanations the researcher had written and the logical conclusions that were presented, it seemed that muggle born witches and wizards were the pureblood’s last hope for as long as the wizarding world remained separate from the muggle one. 

She had a feeling that “muggle born Registry” and  “Breeding Laws” would show up in the papers next, maybe before full on wizarding revolution and warfare. She smiled. 

So much for the future. 


End file.
